


A New Hope

by Nunonabun



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-25 08:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14973086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nunonabun/pseuds/Nunonabun
Summary: I came across a post on tumblr again about that lovely speech from Gloria in S6, hoping she'd see Shelagh in the Chrisp Street Market, both with babies in prams, and I thought it would be nice to explore where Gloria's path might have led.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a oneshot, but I've broken it into two so we'll see how that works.

The tall gangly lad shot one last smile at his mum as he followed the Nurse Matron’s stern gaze out of the maternity ward. His mother’s eyes lingered on the door, even after he’d gone. Her husband normally visited every day, but it was clear she longed for time with the children she could only keep with her via a photograph on her nightstand. Gloria nurtured a small, almost painful spark of hope that one day she too would be able to gather memories of the little one she now carried to reflect in photographs on her own nightstand, at home.

She hadn’t asked Shelagh about the children in the photograph before tonight; she was worried that bringing them up might cause her new friend sorrow, as they couldn’t be with her. Now, however, her longing to understand the future of motherhood, as well as their sharing about pregnancy earlier, prompted her to broach the topic.

“You hardly look old enough to be his mum!” She joked, though not without sincerity.

Shelagh tore her eyes away from the door to turn a contented countenance towards her. “I’m not his mother by birth, I’m his stepmum.” Her face took on a rueful look. “Though had I been his birth mother I still wouldn’t have been the youngest mother I’ve met!”

Their laughter - initially warm - became strained, tinged with the knowledge that their age added to the concerns of their current pregnancies and with the memories of women they’d known through work or community who had become mothers too young.

Gloria nodded to Shelagh’s photograph, seeking to break the tension. “That sweet little girl your first then?”

Shelagh looked longingly at the photograph; her daughter was certainly far too young to bypass the hospital’s visitor regulations. “This one’s the first I’ve carried,” she clarified, placing a hand on her small bump. “Angela’s adopted, though as with Tim, I couldn’t love her any more had I carried her.”

Gloria could have kicked herself. She did remember Shelagh noting that she’d never felt a child move inside her, obviously her other two couldn’t be hers.  _Aren’t hers by blood_ , she corrected herself, noting the love that still lingered in Shelagh’s eyes as they looked beyond her to the memories of her two small ones. Suddenly, blood seemed a very small connection indeed.

~*~

Yet in the end, blood had been the only sight she’d had of her own child. As with the others, she had no sweet little face to carry with her and soothe her loss. Would it be soothing, seeing the bodies that were far too small to enter the world when they did? She’d borne this pain again and again and once the initial horror wore off, she just felt tired. Why go through this over and over? Knowing her child’s firm kick was something she clung to so firmly she’d never stopped to question it until that night when Shelagh’s son came to visit.

It sat with her, that bond she saw between Shelagh and her children. It crept into her mind at night as her pillow is baptized with tears for the children she lost and will never have. More and more she finds herself wondering about the little ones out there who might be crying as she is, but for parents. All this heartache she’s borne and all the confused loss they must feel, it could be healed. She could heal it.

~*~

“What’s this then?” Jerry asked, shrugging out of his coat one fine Monday night and picking up the stack of papers Gloria had left conspicuously on the kitchen table.

Gloria busied herself with the stove, trying to keep her voice casual, as though he wasn’t now holding her dreams in his hands.

“Adoption papers. I though maybe -“ she began, but he cut her off.

“Ah, Glo. You know they won’t choose the likes of us for parents.” In spite of his dismissal, a glimmer of relief broke through the haze of her nervousness. He didn’t seem to be opposed to the idea in and of itself.

“They might do. Our home’s humble but it’s clean and tidy, and we’re not so badly off we couldn’t do well by a baby. We could make a good impression, I’m sure we could.” The words flowed into each other, anxious as they were to get out, borne on by hope that now rested squarely in those precise, typed words and Jerry’s response to them. The silence grew oppressive as he stood unnervingly still, shoulders bowed.

Perhaps he didn’t understand why she didn’t want to try to carry one again. He hadn’t felt the flutters. He hadn’t felt the horror - three times over - of realizing your own body couldn’t protect your baby as it should. Perhaps he wouldn’t think you could love a child who wasn’t born to you. All his brothers and sisters had littleuns of their own; hers too. None of their friends had adopted, and he’d not properly met Shelagh or heard her family story as Gloria had.   

“We would love it, Jerry. I know we would,” she implored. “And there are so many babies out there who need a home as much as we want a baby.” She paused, momentarily scared to reveal the fear that underlay the positive reasons for her choice. “And I can’t go through it again. The hope and then the bleeding and the pain. I can’t.”

Jerry sighed and sat down heavily. Gloria held her breath, watching him flip through the encyclopedia of forms. Eventually, he raised his soft brown eyes to hers and her lungs resumed their function, his answer clear even before he put it to words. Hope bloomed anew, never again to end in the bright flower of blood on a nightie.


	2. Chapter 2

The oppressive sun beat down on her through the clinic’s large windows. All of her senses felt as though they were under assault; the scent of antiseptic making her nauseous, the crying of babies in the nearby lying-in unit pounding at her skull, the taste of bile coating her tongue. **  
**

Shelagh’s sweet-faced little lad entertained himself with wooden animals in his pram. At a little over a year old, he was developing some unique looks; his mother’s distinctive expressions already expressing themselves in his soft features and his hair beginning to flop like his father’s. She should feel joy for her friend, and did, a bit. But this little life was also a reminder of the one that hadn’t flourished; the one she would never know. Gloria consciously inhaled, lungs fighting against the iron bands that were fixed tight around her chest.

“Gloria!” For once, Shelagh Turner’s bright smile failed to bring an answering one to her own lips.

Gloria tried to keep the fear locked up inside her, but the little furrows that instantly materialized on Shelagh’s brow told her she’d failed. Just as she’d failed in so many other ways.

Without a word, Shelagh gently touched her shoulder, ushering her into the back room beside what Gloria assumed was Dr. T’s exam room.

Once the door was safely closed, Gloria let her tears spill over.

She’d come here right away, needing to talk to someone she knew would understand, but now her sorrow and anger wouldn’t let the words loose. It didn’t matter. Shelagh had already guessed.

“I couldn’t tell Jerry,” Gloria explained, closing her eyes tightly against the reality of her situation. “If I tell him, if I say it out loud, it’s like it’ll be real. It would be the first step to the end.”

“This doesn’t have to end as it did the last time.” Shelagh’s voice was soft as her hand rubbed gentle circles over Gloria’s tense back.

Gloria was already shaking her head, shoulders still shuddering though her tears had run dry. “It will. And I can’t walk back to a quiet home with epsom salts rattling around in my suitcase again.”    

“We know what’s wrong this time, we can refer you to the hospital and get the procedure done quickly,” Shelagh tried to persuade her.

Gloria knew logically that Shelagh might be right but she couldn’t hear that right now.

“I didn’t want this,” she took a deep, trembling breath, collecting herself as she had so often in the past. “We were going to adopt. We were going to have a beautiful little family.”

The thought of the baby she’d so longed for opened deeper wells of tears than she’d known she had.

“Every time I signed one of those forms or gathered documents I felt like I could picture our baby’s face a little better.” Gloria’s voice wobbled, and she took a breath to steady herself. “It was like sending our little one a kiss. Telling them we’d be there soon.”

Shelagh’s firm voice cut through her despair. “That dream doesn’t have to end. It might be with a different baby than you thought, but it will be a baby that you will love just as much.”  

 _Will I?_  Gloria couldn’t bring herself to voice the taboo words. With every flutter she felt from inside her, she knew she’d think of all the past ones that had never become full kicks. With every beat of its heart she’d remember the ones that had fallen silent, and the one she hadn’t known but had so desperately hoped to. Resentment had curled itself around the hope that had been growing dimmer each time it dared to show its light.

When Jerry said he didn’t want to use a sheath, she hadn’t protested. She wasn’t a young woman anymore, after all, and her previous pregnancies had all been a few years apart. Surely, she’d thought, the chances of a baby taking hold were too low to be concerned with?

“We can keep you here until you have your surgery, and then again after until baby’s born.” Again, Shelagh’s gentle attempts to restore order to Gloria’s chaos brought her back to reality.

Worn down by the maelstrom of emotions vying for control, she silently changed into the soft clinic nightie that Shelagh brought her and allowed herself to be led to a vacant bed.

She acquiesced when Shelagh asked if she’d like her to tell Jerry about the pregnancy and where she would be staying, and nodded dully when Shelagh reassured her once more that they would send an urgent referral for her surgery. It all felt like being trapped in a bad dream, trying to run but moving horribly slowly, the strange rules of this reality pushing against her with all their might.

Jerry came to her that evening after work. He held her hand as he always did when she first went in. They didn’t talk. Didn’t have to anymore. He knew how she felt as much as he ever could.

~*~

Shelagh stared at the blocky letters and small curls of Sister Evanglelina and Cynthia’s handwriting, both noting the transfer of Gloria Venables’ care to The London as the phone rang. Her own neat, updated summary of G4P3+3 seemed too small to explain all that Gloria had been through; all that she was still struggling through.

  
“London Hospital Maternity Unit, Nurse speaking, how might we assist you?” asked the crisp voice.  
  
“Hello, this is Nurse Turner from the Kenilworth Maternity Home calling in regard to a patient of ours who requires gynaecological surgery. Might she be booked in to see Dr. Kenley in the near future? She was seen by him for a previous pregnancy.”  
  
“Hold please.”  
  
After a long wait, a deeper voice picked up the line. “Good morning, this is Kenley speaking.”  
  
Shelagh greeted the doctor and was relieved to find that he did not seem to recognize her voice or name. Remembering her as a patient would only complicate matters. She reiterated her request.  
  
“Is it an emergency?”  
  
“No, but care is required as soon as possible. She’s two months pregnant and, as you may remember, has previously spontaneously aborted at four months, and twice at six months. She will require a cervical cerclage.” The pads of Shelagh’s fingers tapped a quiet, repetitive pattern against her thigh, a nervous tic she’d never quite been able to shake.  
  
“Once she is admitted, we will keep her under observation and then do a procedure to determine whether she needs surgery.” Kenley explained in a detached, irritatingly reassuring tone that suggested that he neither remembered Gloria, nor even attempted to, and furthermore that Shelagh ought to calm down and leave this to the doctors.  
  
“Yes, well that was done last time,”  _by you_ , she wanted to add, “which is why we know she has cervical insufficiency, but unfortunately it was a wee bit too late.”  
  
Shelagh could hear him shuffling through his notes on the other end of the line. “As this is a new pregnancy, we would normally assess the current situation afresh and keep her in hospital for the duration of her pregnancy.”  
  
“I do think that delaying the surgery would be unwise, given her history,” she cautioned. “We would also like to keep her in the maternity home before and after her surgery. As she has been in hospital three times with bad outcomes, I worry it might be distressing for her to spend so long in hospital with her fourth.”  
  
“I see no reference to the cause of her previous miscarriages in my notes, and might I add that it is not within the scope of your knowledge or power of your position to determine a treatment plan. Please have her transferred to The London and we will take care of her. Good Day.”  
  
As the dead line buzzed in her ear, Shelagh indulged the decidedly uncharitable thought that she would very much like to march right over to Whitechapel and give Dr. Kenley a stern talking-to about professional cooperation and patient care.  
  
Taking a deep breath to cool her frustration she set the phone down and went to seek out her husband. It irked her, but the quickest way to get Gloria the care she needed and minimize her distress was to have Patrick explain to Kenley what she had just attempted to convey.   
  
Her frustration abated a bit as she paused in Patrick’s exam room doorway to watch him narrate a patient referral he was writing to their son, who lay in the crook of his arm with an expression of what was either deep concentration or an impending bowel movement.   
  
“Patrick, could you call The London and refer Gloria for an outpatient cervical cerclage?” Shelagh requested, her voice pulling him away from his task.  
  
Patrick frowned. “I thought you were going going to do that?”   
  
“I was,” Shelagh replied, handing over Gloria’s file, “however as Dr. Kenley seems unwilling to hear a suggested treatment plan from a nurse, we may have more success if you were to recommend it.”  
  
Patrick sighed at his colleague’s rigid adherence to hierarchy and passed Teddy over to his wife as he took up her notes.

~*~

Each day the shadows ticked their way across the floor of the immaculate, cozy ward, punctuated by the professional staccato of nurses’ and the doctor’s instructions, the quiet chorus of conversation from her fellow ward-mates, and the jarring cadence of their laughter.

Each day Gloria put on her well-rehearsed smile and answered the doctor’s questions, or Shelagh’s, or the other ladies’. This darkness would abate once the stitch was in place, they all told her. There would be better days soon.

But the darkness still cloaked her heart even after she emerged from the operating theatre and her baby got its boots on, knocking about its little house to check that it was indeed secure. She loved it, in spite of her efforts to distance herself from the little one, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the baby she’d never carried.

Somewhere out there, was there not still a baby destined for them? One who’d been waiting and was still alone, parent-less?

One night as Shelagh was closing up the maternity home for the day, Gloria’s concerns broke free of their restraints.

“Is it wrong that I can’t enjoy what I’ve prayed to God for because I changed my prayers?” Her voice was rough, as though it resisted the words it was forced to form.

Surely Shelagh wouldn’t understand. Her prayers had been answered when she’d adopted. Her unexpected child hadn’t been a blow to her as Gloria’s was. She would think her ungrateful.

Yet she felt her bed dip gently as Shelagh perched beside her and took her hand.

“It’s not wrong at all. There’s nothing simple about this and emotions don’t always play by society’s rules.”

For once, Gloria’s tentative smile formed of its own accord, free to retain some of the sorrow she tried to keep hidden.

“I just can’t stop thinking about the baby we would’ve had. It feels… it feels almost like I’ve lost another one,” she admitted quietly.

Shelagh gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze. “And if I’m not mistaken, there’s a measure of guilt you’re feeling as well.”

Gloria closed her eyes against the truth of the statement. Her emotions were so tangled she could barely tell the separate strands apart. “I feel as though I’ve abandoned that little one too. I know we’ve never met, but if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, it would have a home. A family.”

“Is that the only reason you still want to adopt, the guilt?” Shelagh asked gently.

Gloria’s eyes started past Shelagh, contemplating the question.

Finally, she answered. “No. That’s not all. I think… I saw that I could have a different sort of family, that I could love someone else’s child, and we could be happy.”

Shelagh nodded, her face settling into the expression Gloria now recognized as her Nurse’s Face. She was coming up with a plan.

“And Jerry, how does he feel?” Shelagh inquired, concern marking her brow, as if she’d only just remembered this part of the puzzle.

Gloria looked to the empty bedside table, her mind replaying all they’d been through to have a baby. The first time she’d gone to hospital, Jerry had visited every day, always bringing fresh flowers when the old ones died. When she’d lost it, he’d held her as she cried and she’d heard him crying at night, when he thought she was asleep. Every time she’d fallen pregnant after that he’d become less and less attentive, distancing himself from the pain and disappointment. He had wanted this too. She’d seen a joy return to his eyes as they got closer to the date of the adoption interview, and he didn’t look so hurt anymore when his brother told them his wife was pregnant again.

Realizing she hadn’t yet answered, Gloria forced her mind back to the present. “He wanted it too. He’s always wanted a big family.”

Shelagh looked as though she’d come to a decision, her bright eyes fixing on Gloria’s. “You don’t have to give up on adoption. We can dig out those forms and sort them out. I’m sure Dr. Turner would be happy to serve as a character witness, and that you’ll already have one child to whom you’ll be a wonderful mum will certainly work in your favour.”

For the first time in months, Gloria felt true hope. Her face was all the confirmation Shelagh needed.

She beamed. “I’ll get started on that then, as long as you’re amenable to the possibility that you may wind up with a child who would - by age at least - be a twin to the one you’re carrying.”

This hope, Gloria didn’t shy away from. She wouldn’t give up on that baby any more that she would the one she was carrying. She’d made a promise to love and care for it. If she’d fallen pregnant after her baby had come home like Shelagh had, she wouldn’t have loved it any less, so why should she now?  The process was different, but she could no more give up on the child that would have come to her from words on a page than one that had come from a seed in her belly.

Gloria laid a hand over her bump and nodded. “I could handle that. Could be nice for the both of them, to always have brother or sister going through life side by side with them.”  

Shelagh gave her hand a parting squeeze as she bustled off. Gloria could almost have laughed at how her friend instantly began planning a solution, rapidly setting things in motion that had seemed lost mere moments before.

That evening she allowed herself an indulgence she’d long since abandoned: she tried to picture her babies’ faces. One would have some of her and some of Jerry in its squidgy little features, and one could be anyone. It could have dark hair, or blonde, or ginger. The little one could grow up to be athletic or artistic or even good at maths - God knew that couldn’t come from Jerry’s genes. She couldn’t wait to meet them.

~*~

A cool breeze scattered newspapers across the street as Gloria Venables made her way over the uneven cobbles of Chrisp Street.

Twin pairs of eyes - bright as the sky above - stared up at her from their joint cocoon, one set squinching up as their owner yawned. They were always soothed by the jolting stroll, for some reason. Yet she was grateful for it, it allowed her to peruse the market at her leisure, pausing to chat with the booth owners and other friends as she bought the week’s food.   

A familiar burr wound its way around the higgledy-piggledy stalls, in between the stalks of the vibrants blooms of the flower stall, clear in spite of the cacophony of chatter and laughter that sought to muffle it.

A different set of clear blue eyes met hers, bright and understanding, a joy lighting them as they recognized each other. A smaller face was just visible, curiously peeking out of his own little chariot.

And they smiled and they passed the time of day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you had thoughts of feelings while reading this, please drop me a comment below, I love to hear from you all.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks for reading! As always, comments are to me as a french fry is to a seagull, so please drop me a note below.


End file.
